Portable Miniature Crokinole Boardgame

Hello everyone! My name is Tim and I'm also known as The Kentucky Bored Gamer. I'm a part of some pretty amazing boardgame groups on facebook so when November and December hit I like to join in on the Secret Santa program where all of us member send another member boardgame gift(s).

This year I got my target and checked their wishlist as well as interests and came to the conclusion that this was something I thought they would enjoy for years to come. Being as I'm a bit of a woodworker, this also helped me "scratch that itch" for the season. :)

The following steps will go over my process for this build and share photos for the various steps involved to the best of my powers.

First and foremost I would like to point out that although I may use tools you don't yet have access to doesn't mean you cannot make this. Granted, it may be a bit harder to achieve but that's the spirit of making, the journey!

Materials

• 3 ft piece of 2x4 ripped into 4 1/8 inch thick pieces for the walls
• 12inch x 12inch piece of 3/4inch thick plywood
• 11inch x 11inch piece of 1/4inch thick blonde wood
• 1/8inch x 12inch dowel
• 5/8inch x 12inch dowel
• 12inch x 12inch piece of colored felt
• Fabric Glue

Tools

• Jigsaw
• Dremel or another rotary tool
• Tablesaw
• Wood glue
• Staple Gun
• Standard sized permanent marker
• Hobby Knife or Razor Knife
• Lots of Foam Brushes
• Various grits of wet/dry sandpaper from 220 all the way up to 2500
• Stain
• Polyurethane
• Microfiber Cloths
• Turtlewax

First, start by ripping your 2x4 down to the correct thickness. Once this is done go ahead and measure and mark out your 45-degree angles on the 12inch x 12inch piece of 3/4inch plywood making it into an octagon.

Now take your 1/4inch blonde wood and find the center of the piece. Then mark out a circle roughly 10 1/2 inches in diameter. This is going to be your playing board.

When you have it marked continue by using your jigsaw (or whatever method makes you comfortable) to cut out the circle and a 5/8inch spade bit to mark the center. Once finished, place it in the center of your octagon and trace the circle onto it. This is going to mark where we need to take wood away.

Now, taking your router continue to route out the circle from the inside of the baseboard. Take your time on this step. If you're like me and don't have a circle cutting jig for your router it simply pays to go slow and adjust accordingly.

Once you have the large circle cut out, you will need to make another circle inside of that roughly 2 inches smaller in diameter and then route that one out as well.

NOTE: I didn't keep track of my depths so I cannot say how far to route in honesty My best advice here is to go about 3/8 of an inch for both to be on the safe side.

At this point, you're going to want to use your staple gun and wood glue to attach the side rails to the baseboard. Yo need to do these one at a time so you can cut the proper length of each piece. The cuts on either side of the walls should be 22.5 degrees.

Once those are installed you can now grab some gloves and stain the base and the walls and let it set to dry.

Now, take your 5/8inch dowel and cut off small discs no taller than 3/8 of an inch. I made a jig and used my table saw for this but you can use whichever method is easiest for you.

You're going to need to cut out 24 of these little guys so pace yourself, lol.

Once finished, you'll want to stain 12 of them so they can be told apart from your opponents pieces.

While your dowels and baseboard are letting the stain set you can continue work on the playing surface.

First thing to note is that it MUST BE SMOOTH! Don't sand TOO much but make sure you sand it smooth to the touch.

Once this is done you can then go ahead and add 2 layers of polyurethane waiting roughly 3 hours between each coat and lightly sanding starting with 220 wet/dry and 400 wet/dry on the second layer.

When they are cured you can now make the rings and lines on the board using your permanent marker. I ended up making a jig to help me make nice precise circles. The important thing is that they need to be 1 1/2 an inch from each other.

When you have the lines and rings finished you can proceed to put 3 more layers of polyurethane on climbing the grit of your sandpaper as you go.

When you get to the last layer wait roughly 6 - 10 hours for it to fully cure and then sand it with 1000, 1500, 2000 and finally 2500. By then you should have a nice buff on the top layer as well as a nice reflection!

Now that we have the board finished its time to apply some carnauba wax(Turtle wax) to the entire playing surface. For this part just follow the steps on the can of wax and you should be fine.

When you're finished with waxing it's now time to mark and drill the 8 places around the center ring to insert the pegs. Once you figure out where they go take your 1/8inch dowel and cut them at 1/2inch and insert each one with a little wood glue into a pre-drilled hole around the ring.

Then take one of your playing discs and mark the height of it on the pegs. Using a rotary tool go ahead and cut them down to size. The reason for this is so that you can store the board upside down protecting it from an onslaught of dust and debris when not in use. :)

Once everything is said and done you're going to want some nice felt in there to keep from scratching all your hard work on the playing surface! I had some green laying around but use whatever color you want there. Start with the inner circle on the baseboard and spread some fabric glue down using a foam brush.

When it is fully cured(about 3 hours) do the same to the outer ring and place the playing board in there to hold it nice and snug against the sides.

Now it's time to add your pieces and play a game of Crokinole on the go!

I also finished this one up by painting the back flat black and writing a little bit on it for the recipient to remember me by without giving away who it's from hopefully. :)

I hope you enjoyed this instructable and thank you for following along. Happy Holidays!